Ultimatum in Adagio
by Lady Pyrefly
Summary: She and Jim had reached that inexplicable point of unexpressed something [love?] where Pam wouldn’t need to tell him to shut up. JAM oneshot


Ultimatum in Adagio

by Lady Pyrefly

Author's Note: I have no idea what happened to spawn this delightful little piece of fluff, especially since I've missed the last two episodes of The Office, but it's here nonetheless. Enjoi, okay?

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I. Sunset

The doorbell rings on a late Mayday and when Jim goes to answer it, it's Pam standing there in the late afternoon sun, looking slightly confused. She isn't crying and it isn't night like it is in the fantasies he has sometimes when she shows up randomly at his house, so Jim is pretty sure that Roy hasn't been being a jackass, but you really can't tell with assholes like Roy and dreamy, arty girls like Pam so maybe Roy left her or she left him and she's doing a really good job of hiding it.

Either way, Jim's thoughts are rambling and he's feeling like he's drunk (he's not) when Pam speaks up. "Jim? Do you think I'm too passive?" Pam still looks a bit lost, like she doesn't know what she's doing exactly or why she's even here, but the thought occurs to Jim that it looks so natural for Pam to be standing on his doorstep with her hair down and makeup smudged, in jeans and a dirty old t-shirt so he doesn't say anything about it. She shifts her weight from one leg to another and looks like she's in a hurry.

"Passive?" Jim echoes, trying to sound thoughtful and mature and sensitive. "I don't know, maybe sometimes." Pam's eyebrows come together, and he thinks he's offended her. "But, I mean, I guess it's understandable. Sometimes it's easier to just go along with whatever instead of fighting." The girl standing on his doorstep nods, but doesn't say anything. There's a disconcerting silence, so Jim breaks it, asking, "Why'd you ask? I mean, why'd you come all the way out here to ask me? You could've called or something. You have a phone, right?" That last question was meant to be a joke, but it doesn't really sound like one because Jim is slightly panicking because just last night he was dreaming about this, but Pam was throwing herself into his arms and crying and telling him she loved him and kissing him and…

Pam smiles a little, like someone in a trance. "Because I've got all my stuff piled into the back of my car and I'm really thinking about leaving." There's a little shake in her voice that feels like an earthquake.

II. Earthquake

Jim does a double-take. "Wait, what? Leaving? Roy, you mean? You're thinking of leaving Roy?" The sudden, random realization that Jim's only in blue jeans and an undershirt make him want to laugh.

"No…" Pam drags out that one intense syllable so long that Jim feels like he's fallen through a rift in the time/space continuum. (He's been watching too much of the Sci-Fi channel recently.) "I'm leaving you, Jim."

Okay, so Jim is really beginning to feel that the aforementioned time/space rift he's fallen through just dumped him into an alternate dimension because there's no way Pam would leave _him_, not leave Jim. No way. "You're leaving…me?"

She shrugs and laughs a short, harsh laugh that is nothing like the silver bells she giggles that make him feel like an idiotic romance-novel-writer because he gets all blush-y and can't think of proper words. "That's right, Jim," she says, and Jim realizes that Pam seems to be tearing up. He's confused. Pam keeps talking. "I'm tired of being such a doormat, Jim. I'm tired of waiting around for something big and beautiful to happen. I'm tired of waiting for you, Jim, to grow some balls and tell me you love me. I can't take it."

The way Pam says "balls" makes him want to laugh and dance around like an escapee from the loony bin, but some part of Jim knows that would be inappropriate. Jim notices for the first time that Roy is sitting in the driver's seat of Pam's car. He begins to feel very afraid.

So he does the only thing that seems to make any sense. He tells Pam he loves her.

III. A Fond Farewell

"I know," Pam says. A few dying rays of sunset disappear. Jim waits for something to happen, but nothing does. Roy seems to be bored. It's quiet a moment, before Pam says. "I'm not really leaving."

Now Jim is seriously confused. Alternate Dimension Pam is not making any sense. "You're not?"

Pam shakes her head. "Nope. I'm staying here in Scranton. Roy thinks I'm asking you about what Michael said about my off time. For my honeymoon, you know?"

"You're still getting married?"

She smiles, a little sadly, and Jim thinks that this is a really bad way to realize how rejection feels. And then mentally hits himself for sounding so much like a lovesick teenage girl. "Yeah, I'm a doormat, remember?" That was Pam's attempt at a joke, but it falls flat. Somehow she knew that it would be this way.

"Alright then, Pam. Okay. Sure." Jim makes an attempt to shut the door, hoping that Pam will say something and stop him. She doesn't, but that's okay. For right now, at least. It's going to be hell at work tomorrow.

Pam walks back into the car next to Roy. There would be no point in telling Jim to keep quiet about what they said, mostly because she knows he wouldn't tell anyone. She and Jim had reached that inexplicable point of unexpressed _something_ (love?) where Pam wouldn't need to tell him to shut up.

She didn't even need to try and pretend it was a joke because, really, they didn't joke much anymore.


End file.
